Posted on 04/07/2015 7:09:21 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
You may have heard that the government is forcing businesses not to discriminate. It isn’t. If you chose to run a business, you have to follow the laws. If you don’t, that’s a choice—and you choose to suffer the consequences.
Still, in the wake of the controversy surrounding Indiana’s law, conservatives don’t see it that way. Even potential Republican presidential candidates are getting in on the assertions. Rick Santorum recently said:
If you’re a print shop and you are a gay man, should you be forced to print ‘God Hates Fags’ for the Westboro Baptist Church because they hold those signs up? Should the government—and this is really the case here — should the government force you to do that? This is about the government coming in and saying, “No, we’re going to make you do this.” And this is where I think we just need some space to say let’s have some tolerance, be a two-way street.
There are two problems with Santorum’s reasoning. The first is that a printer doesn’t have to make such signs, under any law, because refusing to do so is not discrimination in any legally prohibited sense. A print shop can also refuse to print a poster that says, for instance, “F*ck Rick Santorum,” either because it disagrees with the language or the sentiment. Both are entirely legally permissible decisions any business can rightfully make.
But let’s say the printer is asked to make a communion sign or a gay wedding sign. In this case—especially in states that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation as well as religion—refusing to print such a sign would indeed be illegal. The government isn’t forcing that business to do anything other than follow the law. Which is what we expect of all businesses, equally.
This issue of government force is a funny one. You could also argue that the government is forcing you to drive below the speed limit or wear a seatbelt in your car. But it’s not. There isn’t a police officer holding a gun to your head literally forcing you to buckle up. In fact, you are 100 percent free to speed and not wear your seatbelt—and simply deal with the consequences if you’re pulled over. Is the threat of the fine for breaking the law amount to “forcing” you to follow the law? No.
And more to the point, the government certainly isn’t forcing you to drive. If you don’t like the speed limit and seatbelt rules, and don’t want to be subject to the consequences of breaking them, then you can not drive. Whether to drive or not is your choice.
This all seems simple when we talk about driving, but somehow a fringe set of rightwing conservatives want us all to believe that hapless business owners are somehow being forced, against their will, to serve pizza to gay people. Nothing could be further from the truth. If you don’t want to serve pizza to gay people, by all means, don’t—which, by the way, is legal in Indiana and 28 other states, but even where it is illegal, you’re still free to do so and deal with the consequences of breaking the law. That, pizza shop owner, is your choice. And if you don’t want to deal with those consequences, well, no one is forcing you to be in the pizza business. You’re free to do something else.
In the wake of the Loving v. Virginia ruling in 1967, Bob Jones University, a Christian college in South Carolina that explicitly denied admissions to black students, maintained its policy against interracial dating and marriage, citing the Bible. So the school suffered the consequences. In 1983, the Supreme Court upheld the decision of the Internal Revenue Service to revoke Bob Jones University’s tax-exempt status. But the university was still free to continue its discriminatory practices. In fact, while the school did start admitting African-Americans in the 1970s, the ban on interracial dating was only lifted in 2000.
In the United States, private businesses get all kinds of government support—a functional monetary system, police that safeguard private property, roads that help deliver customers and goods, public schools that educate workers, telecommunications infrastructure, legal protections against copyright and patent infringement, tax benefits for business expenses and employee health care, legal shields for owners and more. No one is forcing businesses to take advantage of all those benefits, nor forcing you to start a business to begin with nor forcing you to do so in a state with non-discrimination laws or in the United States to begin with.
Don’t like following the laws that apply to businesses—including serving all customers equally? Then don’t start a business. That’s your choice.
-- Sally Kohn is a columnist and CNN political commentator.
The start up costs to manufacture a record or publish a book on a press are far higher than publishing something to the internet.
If you chose to run a business, you have to follow the laws. If you don’t, that’s a choice—and you choose to suffer the consequences.
I bet she thinks she’s smart. :-|
The government isn't forcing you to marry someone of the opposite sex. If you don't like it, don't get married. "Marrying someone of the same sex" is breaking the rule.
What a series of stupid (and lying) arguments this lib makes.
Its funny how, even though gay wedding is legal in their state, they’re still going after Christians who disagree with them. How about leaving Christians alone?
Sally Kohn’s mental illness has clearly spread beyond the sexual realm and has rendered her incapable of rational thinking.
I don't know if it's the smartest decision to force people who don't like you and don't want to work for you to prepare your food, fix your car, cut your hair, photograph your wedding, or defend you in court. Just sayin'.
Re: Jesse Jackson "Life Magazine | November 29th, 1969 ... Sometimes he preaches on the legacy of slavery, and one senses that as he stands up there, his eyes ablaze, arms flailing, neck veins rigid, he is feeling every lash of every old whip. During these sermons Jackson sweats profusely, the only visible symptom of sickle-cell trait, a chronic blood disease that saps his stamina but which he ignores in the drama of the moment. Jackson talks about himself at these meetings. Once he told of his days as a waiter at the Jack Tar Hotel in his home town of Greenville, S.C. Just before leaving the kitchen he would spit into the food of white patrons he hated and then smilingly serve it to them. He did this, he said, "because it gave me psychological gratification." It was something everybody in the audience understood."
Sally Kohn probably wonders why her cornflakes are sometimes a little saltier than she expects.
Maaybe the government should close down political activist groups
and the free press. Then the author can go work diddle her girl friend and nobody will have to hear or see anything about it.
This all seems simple when we talk about driving, but somehow a fringe set of rightwing conservatives want us all to believe that hapless business owners are somehow being forced, against their will, to serve pizza to gay people.
This poor woman, in clean conscience, could not assist in the celebration of a dysfunctional sex fetish union based on ancient satanic rituals, so the decadents are suing her for her righteousness and the protection of her own immortal soul.
So, I guess Hitler didn’t force anyone to do anything. If you chose to be jewish then you just had to follow the law and get on the train.
When the government forces you to follow a law created by the government, they are not forcing you to do anything except follow the law.
And the definition of a circular argument is?
Excellent. :)
she ignores the laws that are inconvenient to make her argument
That guy kinda looks like a chick. Kinda.
She makes me sick!
Reminds me of an observation Kurt Vonnegut made about totalitarian thinking. It grinds along like the gears of a perfectly reasonable machine — until one tooth on a gear breaks, and it jumps into something horrible and incoherent.
Christian persecution needs to end now! Kohn needs a permanent Caribbean vacation...may I suggest Cuba?
Mm, K.
Well, Plessey-Ferguson was a law at one time. Was it right to follow that law as a citizen or enforce it as a gubmint employee?
Anti-miscegenation laws were very much enforced until the 70’s.
American Indians were very much restricted under the law as to how much of their religious heritage could be retained and practiced until the American Indian Religious Freedom Act, also in the 70’s.
Under all the previous of laws restricting religious concience would that just be an inconvenience for a business they would have to factor into their business?
The whole issue is the result of a number of people’s stupidity.
There is no moral obligation NOT to make a “gay wedding” cake. Making such a cake is not giving formal approval of sodomy.
If Christians are going to insist that a baker may refuse to make a gay wedding cake, then they must admit that a Muslim checker may refuse to check out pork or liquor, or that a Muslim cab driver may refuse to transport liquor, pork, or a dog.
The Christian businesspeople who have been ruined because of their refusal to bake a cake, or provide flowers, or take photographs, have only their own malformed consciences to blame.
In a different context, liberals would be horrified that anyone would force them to do anything. Since they have no principles, they can justify anything as long as it advances The Agenda of their hive-mind.
But free exchange is exactly that or it is coerced. Sadly, as with all things liberal, they took a situation that needed to be changed (where black people were refused service to support basic human needs like where to eat lunch or where to get a drink of water), and turned it into a horse to ride to advance the liberal agenda.
And thus we turned a need for black people to have a place to sleep or even to relieve themselves into the legal theory that every business was being operated as a “public convenience” and thus did not have the right to refuse to serve some customers. Now the law started out defining those customers as ones by race, that is to say that a business could not refuse to serve a person solely based on race, but now that government has redefined “marriage” to include something that is blatantly hostile to Christianity, when Christians decline to enable such a “marriage”, government can be called upon to force them to.
One of the solutions is to separate marriage and state. That is to say that marriage is a private matter and it should now be clear that it was a gross error to allow government to define and regulate marriage. Never mind it was done in part to advance eugenics.
When marriage returns to the sphere of private life, people can form whatever relationships they please without government being able to stop them. They do anyway! When is the last time anyone heard of government closing down a “hippie commune” no matter how many feral children it produced?
When marriage is a once again a private matter, government could not be called upon to force a third party to acknowledge it. Thus flower shops and wedding cake makers could go about their business, serving any customer they pleased and declining anyone they didn’t want to serve.
But this whole mess is not about allowing everyone to live in peace with each other. It is a way for liberals to wage lawfare against conservatives and especially conservatives who are Christian.
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